


baby, keep burning like we're never gonna die

by wayonwayout



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 12:21:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9820364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wayonwayout/pseuds/wayonwayout
Summary: Jughead's playingDavid and Goliath, and in real life, that doesn't end well. He knows exactly where he's headed; he just wishes Archie would give him his damn aspirin and quit trying to convince him to stop.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i'm trying to nail that heightened, neo-noir teen pov voice, so consider this more practice for the longfic that will inevitably come out of my garbage obsession with this garbage show. 
> 
> set probably around the theoretical season finale -- things between jughead & archie are still tense, but a bit better, and jughead's investigation has progressed to the point where he qualifies as a legitimate Threat To The Bad Guys. **warnings:** violence (not depicted) and its aftermath (bruises  & blood; ultimately nothing broken); bad depictions of medical assessment typical of a teenager who doesn't know what the fck he's talking about; more unfortunate decisions (they're kind of my thing at this point.)

 

Realistically, Jughead was bound to get the shit beat out of him someday. Under the sickly sweet demeanor, Riverdale’s got more secrets than a Vegas bookie and twice as many knives; she’s the prom queen and the pig’s blood all at once. And Jughead’s a fan of secrets, in the sense that he likes to drag them kicking and screaming into the light, make it so people can’t pretend they don’t know anymore. But honesty’s only ever a virtue when it’s not a threat to the sugar cookie lifestyle of which you are accustomed. The town with pep! _in statu quo_. So, sure -- at some point or another, he knew, it was inevitable.

He just wasn’t expecting it to be at 6 pm on a Thursday, on his way out of the corner store with a fistful of beef jerky and zero cents left to his name.

They leave him in the mouth of the alley out back, smeared like roadkill at the foot of a dirty wall. It’s sub-zero cold and _dark_ ; he couldn’t make out their faces even when they jumped him in the dim light of the store’s windows, and he more or less can’t feel his legs, so following them is out.

“Keep that pointy nose out of the Board’s personal business,” one of them called over his shoulder as they left.

Probably good advice. Jughead doesn’t intend to take it.

His fingers come away wet when he touches his nose; he doesn’t want to know where else he might be bleeding. Everything hurts, so it’s a sucker’s game trying to guess. Panting slightly, he tugs his phone out of his pocket. It turns on when he tries, thank fuck -- it’s just a shitty little prepaid thing but he’s not asking a lot, here.

He still has Archie’s number memorized. His fingers shake as he types, letter by slow letter: _behind mikes convenience store. bring aspirin - j_

He doesn’t want to call it a last resort, but there’s a reason he hasn’t used this number in half a year.

There’s a lot of reasons.

A car speeds past in the dark. Outside the mouth of the alley, the air is lit with the hazy glow of the neon sign around the corner. There’s skid marks in the grime on the pavement where his feet had dragged, before the first punch knocked the stubborn out of him.

Out of the darkness comes the sound of footsteps, approaching fast. He drags himself up inch by painful inch until he’s sitting, more or less, clutching his jacket closed around his sides. His hat is… somewhere. Pulse pounding in his ears, he holds himself so, so still -- it could be Archie, or, if the coin toss of fate is _really_ loaded today, it could be --

“Holy shit, Jug.”

Archie Andrews, in the flesh.

“Archie,” he says, and barely stifles a gasp as his ribs grind. “That was faster than I was expecting.”

Archie drops into a crouch beside him, one hand going automatically to Jughead’s shoulder, steadying, and the other hovering in the air between them. “Do I need to call 9-1-1?” he says, voice thin with panic.

Jughead waves the phone in his hand.

“Right,” Archie says, “Right, you could’ve done that already. Holy shit, Jug, what _happened?”_

“A couple of guys _really_ wanted my lunch money.”

“Jughead!” Archie snaps, and Jughead finally looks him dead in the face. Takes in the worry, the fear, the -- all the crap he would rather not see. It hurts as much as anything else -- makes it feel too real. It’s harder to play at cops and robbers when there’s someone out there who cares what shape you’re in at the end of the game, regardless of whether or not the truth wins out.

Archie inhales sharply -- because, of course, looking up means Archie can see _his_ face, too.

“Jesus,” Archie breathes. He touches Jughead’s cheek, wipes dirt away under his eye with the pad of his thumb. “Jesus, Juggie.”

That touch feels like the only soft thing in the world right now. Jughead swallows and quips, “You should see the other guys.”

Archie glances over his shoulder; blue flickers off his face, the tense set of his jaw, the furrow of his brow. “Yeah?” he says, distracted, like he’s just humouring Jughead. “You get in a few hits?”

“No,” says Jughead, “I mean, you should see them, because I have no idea who they are. If you could figure it out that would make my life _so_ much easier --”

“Damn it, Jug!” Archie’s whole body goes rigid, like he’s fighting back the urge to hit something. Hopefully not Jughead, although with the night he’s been having, he won’t count it out. But Archie’s hands are gentle. He’s still cupping Jughead’s face, his thumb a barely-there warmth at his cheekbone. “You can’t keep doing this!”

“One little setback --”

“You could be dead right now, Jug,” Archie says, “they could have _killed you_ , and you won’t even tell me what you’re doing! Where you go at night -- why you’ve changed phone numbers, apparently, or, or, why you show up looking like you haven’t slept in a week, or --”

His voice is rising and Jughead’s skull _aches_ , lightning pain resonating out from behind his eyes. “If you wanted to play twenty questions, you could have just _asked_ ,” he says, too mean and too _forceful_ , and this time he can’t hold back the groan as something shifts in his chest, bitingly sharp.

“Oh god,” he hears, distant, not as important as the ringing in his ears. A hand presses at his chest, then shoves aside his jacket and flannel so it can search through just the thin fabric of his t-shirt. It hurts but it’s _warm_ ; without thinking about it, Jughead finds himself curling in towards its touch. “Easy, hey,” the same voice says, only shaking a little. “I got you.”

When his breathing steadies and his vision clears, Archie is there.

“I don’t think anything’s broken,” he says. He looks ghostly pale. “When Reggie’s rib cracked at the game last year, you could feel it, and he would shout if you touched it.”

Jughead swallows. “Maybe Reggie’s just more of a wimp than me,” he says, cautious of the way his chest moves under Archie’s hand.

Archie’s fingers tense, then go slack.

“You need to _stop_ ,” he says. “It’s not -- it can’t be worth this, Juggie. Whatever it is.”

He sounds exhausted. He sounds about how Jughead feels; Jughead -- barely -- restrains himself from quipping, _sleep when we’re dead, eh, bud?_

“Help me up,” he says instead. He feels wild, like something got shook loose when the rest of him hit the ground, and all his guts are at risk of tumbling out. The pain has him feeling heady and  _dangerous_. 

"Yeah," Archie says, oblivious. "Yeah, come on --"

It’s slow, and he only makes it with Archie’s hands, under his elbows, at his waist, at the small of his back. They haven’t touched this much in half a year. It makes his breathing stutter, and Archie looks at him like _that_ again, like he wants to steal Jughead away where no one else can touch him ever again.

 _That could be arranged_ , Jughead thinks with only a bit of pain-tinged hysteria. _How about that roadtrip we missed out on, Arch?_

He bites that back too. 

“Here,” Archie says, and hands him a pack of aspirin out of his pocket, then tugs a water bottle one-handed out of the pocket on the side of his backpack. He’s still dressed for school -- like he had practice, or something. Jughead doesn’t know what. Practices are usually on Tuesdays.

He downs the pills with a nod of thanks, and doesn’t ask, for once. It’s the least he can do, when he’s leaving Archie out of _his_ life too. Even if it’s for Archie’s own good.

“You should come back to my house,” Archie says.

Jughead tests his weight, shifting from foot to foot in Archie’s careful hold. “And listen to you pester me about this all night? No thanks.”

“My dad’s not home, and I can take a better look at those cuts and stuff,” Archie says. “Come on. I’ll worry myself sick if you don’t.”

Jughead sighs. “Fine,” he says. “But only because I’m not totally sure I can walk on my own.”

It’s meant as a joke, but Archie’s mouth goes thin and upset again. He manages to hold it in the few steps out of the alley, then stops, turns, forcing Jughead to stop and turn with him. The light is back on his face; it makes him look washed out, like he’s underwater, untouchable and one step out of time.

“ _In statu quo ante bellum,”_ Jughead says, before Archie can try again. Something about this -- Archie’s hand hot at his waist, under his jacket; Archie’s chest almost against his; the fear in Archie’s eyes. It’s almost too much. It almost makes him believe he has something to lose, after all. He can’t afford that.

Archie frowns. “Gesundheit?”

“It’s Latin.”

“I knew that, jerk.”

Jughead feels himself sway, slightly, and Archie’s other hand come up to steady his elbow. “It means, ‘in the state in which we were before the war,” he says.

Archie swallows, eyes wide. “You’re not at war, Jug,” he says. “That’s -- that’s too big. You’re just a kid.”

“It’s the _before_ I take issue with,” Jughead says. “A lot of things can hide behind the assumption of a bloodless _before_.”

Archie’s eyes flicker across the street, like he’s worried someone might be listening. He’s learning, finally. A lot of things can hide in the small spaces of a quiet town, so long as everyone agrees not to look.

When he turns back to Jughead, he looks like he’s steeling himself. “Are you talking about us, too?”

“What?” Jughead says, frowning. Whatever step Archie’s made, he’s missed it.

“We were a _before_ , too,” says Archie. “I thought we were good, but -- but maybe --”

“We were, Arch,” Jughead says; one of his hands grabs at the leather of Archie’s letterman jacket without conscious thought. He looks down at it, the white of the knuckles shining through the dirt and blood in the cool blue light, then back up. “We were good. What we had was --”

 _The best part of his life._ It’s too much to say, here, when it already feels like his chest is caving in, and Archie is looking at him like _that_. It’s too big, and it would show too much, and there’s too much left for him to do.

“If you would just stop pushing me away,” Archie says, hoarse --

“If you would just let me _do what I have to do --”_

Archie’s eyes are wet. That’s the last thing Jughead sees, before Archie jerks, like some tether in him has broken, and leans forward, pressing their mouths together, hard and desperate. But it’s not rough -- his hands don’t move from their careful place at Jughead’s sides, and he doesn’t jostle Jughead’s ribs at all. Even so -- the fact of it, of Archie’s lips on his, feels like getting punched all over again.

Jughead is the one to break it; he stares up at Archie, wide-eyed and, for once, all out of words.

“Sorry,” Archie breathes. “Sorry, I -- sorry.”

Jughead swallows. “It’s okay,” he says, then bites back the rest of what he wants to say: _there can be an_ after _, too. It’s not all befores and bloody alleyways. There could be something_ after _, too._ He doesn’t say it because he’s not sure it’s true.

Archie waits, like he can feel the words on the tip of Jughead’s tongue, then sighs when it becomes obvious there’s nothing more coming.

“Let’s get you home,” he says, and he pulls Jughead closer as they start to walk again, like he thinks maybe that’s all it’ll take to keep him safe.

Jughead leans into him, but he doesn’t fool himself. It doesn’t change anything. It can’t.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> come yell with me about these losers @ wayonwayout.tumblr.com xo


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